Religion – Weltanschauung – Recht [ RWR ]

The European Court of Human Rights will be delivering a Grand Chamber judgment in the case of O’Keeffe v. Ireland (application no. 35810/09) at a public hearing on 28 January 2014 at 11 a.m. – local time – in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg. The case concerns the question of the responsibility of the State for the sexual abuse of a schoolgirl, aged nine, by a lay teacher in an Irish National School in 1973.

Principal facts

The applicant, Louise O’Keeffe, is an Irish national who was born in 1964 and lives in Cork (Ireland).

From 1968 onwards Ms O’Keeffe went to a National School, as did the majority of Irish children. National schools are State-funded primary schools which are privately managed under religious (mainly Catholic) patronage. Ms O’Keeffe’s school, Dunderrow National School, was owned by the Catholic Diocese of Cork and Ross, its Patron was the Bishop of Cork and Ross and it was managed by a priest (Ó) on behalf of an Archdeacon.

In 1971 a parent of a child complained to Ó that the Dunderrow school principal (LH), a lay teacher, had sexually abused her daughter. Further complaints were made in 1973. Following a parents’ meeting chaired by Ó, LH went on sick leave and then resigned in September of that year. In January 1974 Ó informed the then Department of Education and Science of LH’s resignation. The Department was not informed about the complaints against LH and no complaint was made to the police at that point. LH then went to another national school, where he taught until his retirement in 1995.

From January to mid-1973 Ms O’Keeffe was subjected to a number of sexual assaults by LH. While she later had some psychological difficulties, she did not associate those with the abuse. She suppressed the sexual abuse. In the course of a criminal investigation into a complaint against LH by a former pupil at Dunderrow in the mid-1990s, Ms O’Keeffe was contacted by the police and she made a statement to them in January 1997. She was referred for counselling. During the investigation a number of other pupils of the school made statements about abuse by LH. He was charged with 386 criminal offences of sexual abuse involving some 21 former pupils of Dunderrow National School. In 1998 he pleaded guilty to 21 sample charges and was sentenced to imprisonment.

Having heard evidence from other victims during LH’s criminal trial and following medical treatment, Ms O’Keeffe realised the connection between her psychological problems and the abuse by LH. In October 1998 she applied to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal for compensation and was awarded 53,962.24 €. In September 1998 she also brought a civil action against LH, the Minister for Education and Science, as well as against Ireland and the Attorney General, claiming damages for personal injuries suffered as a result of assault and battery including sexual abuse. She claimed: that the State had failed to put in place appropriate measures and procedures to prevent and stop LH’s systematic abuse; that the State was vicariously liable as the employer of LH; and that the State was responsible as the educational provider under Article 42 of the Constitution.

LH did not defend the civil action so in October 2006 the High Court ordered him to pay Ms O’Keeffe 305,104 € in damages. Following enforcement proceedings, in which LH claimed he had recovered in the region of € 30,000.

In March 2004 the High Court summarily dismissed the claims of direct negligence against the State. In January 2006 the High Court further held that the State was not vicariously liable for the sexual assaults by LH and dismissed her constitutional claim.

In December 2008 the Supreme Court dismissed Ms O’Keeffe’s appeal on the vicarious liability point. The Supreme Court found that the Irish primary school system had to be understood in the specific context of early 19th Century history and that, while the State funded the system, the management role of the church was such that the State could not be held vicariously liable for the acts of the teacher in question.

Complaints and procedure

Ms O’Keeffe complains that the Irish State failed both to structure the primary education system so as to protect her from abuse as well as to investigate or provide an appropriate judicial response to her ill-treatment. She also claims that she has not been able to obtain recognition of, and compensation for, the State’s failure to protect her. She relies on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy). She further complains of violations of Article 8 (right to respect for private life) and Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 (right to education), alone and in conjunction with Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination), in that the sexual abuse has caused her significant relationship, sexual and marital problems and that she has suffered discrimination given the refusal to compensate victims of abuse in National Schools while accepting to do so as regards abuse victims from reformatory or industrial schools. (Reformatory and industrial schools were established in the 1850s/60s. The great majority of children were committed to industrial schools by a court because they were “needy” and the next most frequent grounds of entry were involvement in a criminal offence or non-attendance at school. These schools went into decline in the 1970s.)

The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 16 June 2009 and declared partially admissible on 26 June 2012. On 20 September 2012 the Chamber to which the case had been allocated relinquished jurisdiction in favour of the Grand Chamber. A hearing took place in public before the Grand Chamber in the Human Rights Building, Strasbourg, on 6 March 2013.

Press release ECHR 019 (2014) 22/01/2014